Session #104 · 1995–97

Speech #1040238541

Chairman. I yield myself such time as I may consume. I do not want to see illegal aliens in this country. I want our laws enforced. I do not want illegals to undercut the pay of U.S. workers. There is enough of that going on already. But I frankly am not at all sure that I like the idea of their getting backpay or any other pay. But it would seem to me that unless a provision is created by this amendment that would require such pay instead of going to illegal aliens to go into the Treasury of the United States. then the amendment is deficient and would create an incentive for employers to fire or threaten to fire immigrants and to encourage immigrants to illegally work lest they be exposed by their employers. It is bad enough for employers to hire workers who they know are illegals. But for them to take advantage of illegal aliens. pay them wages which are either substandard or denied at all in the end is to turn substandard wage workers into slaves. That would be even worse. So I would simply suggest that. while the amendment may have a good intention. I do believe that it would have the effect of enabling some unscrupulous importers of illegal aliens to be able to avoid their legal responsibilities and to undercut American wages of American workers in the process. I suspect this amendment is going to be accepted by the committee on the majority side. and there is not much I can do about that. But I will certainly.
Keywords matched
illegal aliens immigrants

Classification

Sentiment
Mixed
Stereotyping
No
Confidence
100%
Model
gemini-2.0-flash
Framing
Economic threat Legal / procedural

Speaker & context

Speaker
DAVID OBEY
Party
D
Chamber
H
State
WI
Gender
M
Date
1996-07-11
Speech ID
1040238541
Paragraph
#0
← Prev Next →